Do you question the Blazers' medical staff?

Personally I have to admit that I DO. I'm sure they will make the argument that all of our injuries are just incredibly bad luck, but I'm just not willing to accept that. Let's look at a few questionable incidents:

1) Martell Webster breaking his foot early last season then returning only to break it again.

2) Greg Oden chipping his kneecap last season and then being told no scoping was necessary. Oden then returns this season and breaks the same kneecap.

3) Nic Batum complaining about shoulder discomfort over the summer with his National Team. He then participates in workouts with the Blazers until just before the season he has to undergo surgery and is lost for most of the year.

4) Brandon Roy showing discomfort with his hamstring and sits out a couple of games. Then he apparently comes back too soon, re-injures his hammy and is lost for who knows how long?

5) Jeff Pendergraph having hip surgery just before the start of the season. Could this have been done sooner?

6) Rudy's back issues. Why did it take so long to determine that surgery was necessary?



I just don't know about our staff? It's hard to believe that everything that has happened is just some ridiculous coincidence.

 

Don't forget how much Oden's upper body bulked up while he was unable to work out his lower body because of the MF surgery. I can't imagine that was good for his knees.

 

Q? Do you question the Blazers' medical staff?

not from where I sit. I hope the medical staff is making the right calls but I'm not in the position to know otherwise. People don't just happen to become doctors let alone part of an NBA franchise's experts entrusted with caring for their multi-million dollar assets. I'm sure the Blazer staff of Docs have many decades of experience between them. Experts get the benefit of the doubt from me unless I've good reason to believe otherwise. As removed as we are from being doctors let alone understanding the complexities of these particular injuries makes playing arm chair doctor seem very silly... of course some of us seem to enjoy doing the

Hoops is a rough game and most everyone from pick-up player to pro suffers injuries. Often the body can heal a condition through rest and therapy which is much preferable to surgery. Several of the situations Blazer players faced were in this grey area where surgery was eventually opted for, but that doesn't mean the Blazer Docs were wrong in hoping the body would heal up on it's own. Running a battery of tests and monitoring an injury over time gives the medical expert an idea whether the body is healing or needs some more radical assistance.

STOMP

 

One would think the sheer volume of injuries would give you good reason to question.

 

you think the Doctors should have prevented Martell from breaking his foot or Roy from straining his hamstring etc..? I don't expect clairvoyant superpowers to be part of their resume. Once an injury like those above has happened, there is no sure path to take getting a guy back up and rolling. Any course of rehab contains a stronger possibility that the player will re-injure their weak link again then if they weren't injured in the first place.

It's not like the amount of injuries that Blazer players have suffered this season is off the charts... hell the Warriors have experienced an even worse run of luck this season and several other teams are missing multiple players. At least none of the injuries should be long term detriments like joint injuries... everyone should be able to make it back.

STOMP

 

Uh, Letting Roy come back to early this year from the Hamstring makes me question. Also, since the injury was suffered last year, and didn't heal ALL OFF SEASON while Roy (Rested and didn't play an ounce of BB) leads me to wonder WTF they are thinking.

Also, the misdiagnosis of Odens chipped knee cap, which, IMHO ultimately led to the cracking and breaking of his patella this season, also has me wondering and questioning.

Batum and Rudy --- eh.....I can understand.

Pendergraph is fine, shit happens in his situation.

Trout and Joel - Shit happens.

 

NO, because I am not qualified to.

 

Did Blake return after a shoulder injury last season only to re-aggravate it his first game back? I seem to recall this, but I'm not 100% certain.

 

If the injuries were at all similar then I guess you could start to look at training and treatment methods, but really the rash of injuries this year feels like a massive outlier; there's no pattern, there's no reason and ultimately there are no preventative measures.

Shit happens -- and this year it happens all the time.

 

I was listening to the BS report w/ Bill Simmons and Chad Ford a few weeks ago, and both of those guys kept mentioning how Roy was flagged by quite a few teams' medical staffs prior to the draft and dropped to #6 (mostly due to his knee issues during his junior year @ UW). Anyway, this conversation was derived from talk about Blair's knee problems and how the Spurs took a risk. Although Simmons chimed in that the Blazers with all their financial resources had access to the best doctors to examine draft picks, maybe our injury troubles have more to do with KP's risky dealing, than our training staff?

(I'm definitely glad he picked Roy, though).

 

In regards to the issues cited above, aren't those things more a function of the training staff than the 'medical' staff? I'd question the trainers more than the doctors.

 

Not sure. I think Martell's stress fracture should not have been as big as a deal as it was.

Probably more so I am curious as to whether the issues are coming up on the physicals they players get before we draft/trade for them. Many had isses that had to get taken care of before they played a game. Did we known about them and just ignore it? To we not know about them?

 

The only thing I question is how strong they are. They allowed B-Roy to decide when he could play. That was a mistake. A guy like Roy is going to try and come back at the first sign of recovery.

It's up to the medical staff to prevent them from hurting themselves. They dropped the ball this time. Hopefully they will be far more careful in the future.

 

how do you know it was a mistake? Did he tear the hamstring or did he test it and find out that it's still strained? If it's the later and he didn't make it worse and only discovered it's going to take longer to come back then initially hoped, thats just how it goes. Rehabbing a hammy is not an exact science with a tried and true time line for recovery.

STOMP

 

Totally - they're paid to fix problems before they happen - right? With Paul Allen's money, we should be able to hire doctors so awesome that we never have any injuries!

 

I guess the thread title is mis-worded then as I would include the training staff with the medical staff.

 

At the same time, Roy admitted he wasn't near 100%, which means he held out information from the medical staff and chose to play, because it was quite clear from the article the day before, he figured out that if he said anything negative the staff would not let him play. So he withheld info, and got hurt again. So if anything, I blame Roy on this one.

 

Nope.

 

Then, yes. I've wondered about the team's trainers for a long time: are they "old school" ... are they evolving with changing theories, treatments, and training approaches in modern sports medicine ... what? Not that we can blame three broken feet on them, LOL. Maybe we should also question Nike/Converse/Addidas.

 

Yes I blame them. Regardless if that blame is totally deserved, I just don't trust them since the health of our team has suffered setback after setback.

In the NBA, often you see coaches get canned when their team loses more than expected. They might not be the cause of those losses, but they take the blame. It might be that there are injuries, arrests, player disputes, or a host of other issues, but in the end, the coach loses his job. Well, medical issue after medical issue, regardless of who is at fault, the blame lies on the medical and training staff, and they should be let go.